


With Eyes Wide Open

by enthusiasmgirl



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-07
Updated: 2015-10-07
Packaged: 2018-04-25 05:39:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4948750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enthusiasmgirl/pseuds/enthusiasmgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One drunken night after a party, Foggy realizes that there's more to his new college roommate than meets the eye. You'd think it would change everything, but it changes almost nothing. Except that he gets to enter into the partnership of Nelson and Murdock knowing exactly what he's getting into.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With Eyes Wide Open

**Author's Note:**

  * For [prettybirdy979](https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettybirdy979/gifts).



> So this is for a Daredevil Kink Meme prompt (and is filled by me at the request of one of the winners of the Daredevil Minor Character Fic Fest! Congrats and thanks for writing such an awesome entry!). The prompt can be found [here](http://daredevilkink.dreamwidth.org/5006.html?thread=9774734#cmt9774734) and reads as follows:
> 
>  
> 
> _AU: Matt Tells Foggy Earlier_
> 
>  
> 
> _Up to the author how much earlier. I would love it either being at a point when it's just about the senses or shortly after the first time he went out in the mask but if anybody feels inclined early in the season would also have a lot of drama potential._
> 
>  
> 
> _Also I'm really mostly about the telling but if somebody wants to explore how that would change the canon of the show I won't object._
> 
>  
> 
> It features some modified scenes and dialogue from Nelson v. Murdock and may or may not eventually get a sequel. Enjoy!

Foggy was far too drunk to be wandering back to the dorm alone. The thought vaguely occurred to him as he wandered away from the house party and staggered across the campus. Unfortunately, he was also too drunk to know any better.  
  
Matt hadn't come with him to the party. Matt never came with him to parties. Despite a promising beginning as roommates, their friendship was still only just getting off the ground, the two of them still getting to know one another. And, if Foggy was being honest with himself, he still couldn't tell if Matt even liked him. Maybe it was because he was blind, maybe it was because he was raised in an orphanage, but there was something distant and odd about Matt that Foggy couldn't quite put his finger on. And Foggy was also certain that Matt frequently found him irritating even on a good day. Matt may not have realized that Foggy even noticed that he sometimes sniffed the air when Foggy entered the room or brushed Cheetoh dust off of his desk with disdain, but Foggy knew when he was being looked down upon and it didn't make him feel like they had the foundation of a long and devoted friendship ahead of them. Mutual love of Top Gun and beautiful women aside.  
  
So he hadn't invited Matt. And now he was alone, barely upright, moments away from face-planting into the grass and hopefully not choking on his own vomit before campus security picked him up.  
  
He was completely unprepared, then, when three of his classmates approached him with a predatory look in their eyes.  
  
"Hey, look it's Nelson!" one of them said, strong arms reaching for Foggy's elbow to keep him vertical.  
  
"Hey... you!" Foggy said back. He couldn't remember the man's name. Or his double's.  
  
"You're pretty drunk, aren't you buddy?" a second, also unknown, man asked.  
  
"Am I?" Foggy squeaked. "Guess so!"  
  
The third man had snuck up behind him and he was now surrounded. They were standing very close.  
  
"You know I wanted to thank you for getting in the way of my hookup with Wendy Fitz last week, dude," the man at his side said, and that's when Foggy remembered him. Mason Bergman. His "hookup" with Wendy had been less consensual than he was making it sound, and so Foggy had stepped in at a party the week before to protect the poor drunk girl and tell Mason exactly what he thought of him. Loudly and in front of everyone around them. He had practically had to carry Wendy home afterwards and put her in her bed, and he wouldn't have been surprised if she'd been slipped something. He sobered up slightly as he realized that Mason might not just want a friendly chat.  
  
"You're welcome," he told Mason, because fuck him.  
  
The first punch was to his stomach, and he keeled over immediately, feeling the pavement grind into his palms. He choked a bit as acid came up from his stomach, and felt it go back down as he took a second punch across the jaw. Within seconds, there were feet kicking him, more than he could count and everything ached. He tried to defend himself but his drunken state made him too slow to respond properly. His face was slammed into the sidewalk and he heard the crunch of bones in his nose, felt the blood flow freely down his chin. He started to sob. He couldn't help it. Were they going to kill him?  
  
And then, suddenly, they were gone and he was spitting out blood, hyperventilating and trying not to swallow it, curling into a ball as he held his bruised ribs and cried.  
  
He was vaguely aware of the continued sounds of fighting around him. A thump. Two more thumps. Bodies hitting the ground. He turned his head slightly to see an unconscious Mason lying next to him, and someone standing over them all. A pair of sneakers that he vaguely recognized. His eyes followed jeans, then a hoodie, and finally the face of his rescuer. But... it wasn't possible. It couldn't be. It was much darker than Foggy thought it should be, so maybe he was imagining things.  
  
"Hey, buddy," Matt said, rushing to his side and crouching down. He reached out tentatively and stroked a hand along Foggy's forehead and down to feel the lump there, continued to explore Foggy's rapidly developing black eye. He wasn't wearing his glasses and Foggy was surprised to realize even in the darkness that his eyes still weren't tracking properly as he felt Foggy's various injuries with his fingers.  
  
"Matt?" Foggy asked. "How...?" But he didn't know what else to say. Matt sighed as one of his arms began to feel the pavement next to him, finally landing on his cane. His discarded cane, lying there on the ground where Matt had obviously thrown it before he'd knocked Foggy's three attackers unconscious in only a few punches. What the hell?  
  
"Foggy, I..." he looked like he was trying to formulate the words but they were stuck in his throat. "I will explain everything to you. I promise. But I called campus security and when they get here you have to tell them that you did this. Can you do that?"  
  
"Me?" Foggy asked. "But you..." he trailed off, confused, pointing at the bodies around him. He rolled his tongue across a loose tooth and it came out, so he spit it on the ground.   
  
"They didn't see me," Matt said. "The streetlights went out and I was quick."  
  
"The streetlights?" Foggy asked, and as much as it hurt he craned his neck to look around them. The streetlights were, in fact, out. When had that happened?  
  
"Yeah," said Matt. "They might say another person was there, but I think that you can spin it as them not wanting to admit that you kicked their asses. Think of the story you'll get out of it. Am I a good wingman or what?" Matt smiled, but it was strained and he was clearly unsure what to say to make the situation not insane. Foggy just nodded.  
  
Soon, campus security arrived, and an ambulance was called for the three unconscious attackers and so that Foggy could be checked for internal bleeding. Matt stayed with him the entire time, explaining to the police that he had been walking home from the library nearby when he'd heard the commotion and realized that his roommate was in trouble. The cops were disappointed that he wasn't a very good witness to what happened. but they obviously couldn't press him. They took his report, then took Foggy's. Foggy expected them to have a million questions about why a blind man would be walking home from the library alone so late, or how Foggy had learned to fight well enough to knock three opponents out while so drunk. But they accepted what he told them at face value, told him that given his condition the fight had clearly been in self defense and so they weren't going to press charges, and left.  
  
His broken nose was set, his cuts and scratches were looked at and he underwent an x-ray and MRI to ensure that nothing more serious has occurred, and by the time they left the hospital it was almost the next afternoon. Matt had never left his side. Foggy couldn't tell if it was because Matt was concerned for Foggy's health or that Foggy was going to tell the truth the moment he was alone, but Foggy appreciated it either way. By the time he finally staggered through the doors of their room and collapsed on the bed, still wearing his bloody, torn clothing from the night before, he didn't have the energy or presence of mind to confront Matt about what he'd done. He passed out. It could wait.  


* * *

  
  
"So... you can see?" Foggy asked Matt, confused the next morning after he had patiently listened to Matt's explanation for his actions the night before. He hadn't expected it to include Matt hearing him in trouble from across the campus and jumping across rooftops to get to him quickly enough to help.  
  
"No," Matt said, frustrated. "It's not... I'm still blind. I can't see colours or light or watch television. My other senses are just heightened. They help me navigate the world and allow me to know what's going on around me, but it's not the same thing as sight, Foggy. Trust me."  
  
"I do," Foggy said, and he meant it in a way Matt hadn't intended when he said it. "You saved my life last night. But it all sounds so nuts, Matt. I mean, radioactive chemicals that gave you super-senses? A blind sensei showing up out of nowhere to train you to be... what... a child soldier in some weird army?"  
  
"I know what it sounds like. It's why I don't tell anyone about it, and why you can't either. Promise me, Foggy," Matt leaned in close and Foggy could hear the desperation in his voice. Desperation to be believed. Desperation to keep his secret safe. Foggy nodded. "Oh!" he said as he realized what he'd done. "I just nodded."  
  
"I know you did," Matt said, smiling slightly. Foggy suddenly felt struck by the responsibility Matt was entrusting him with. So much of Matt's life was hidden, a lie. And now he was the only one who knew the truth. It felt important. It felt good.  
  
"This is going to take some getting used to," Foggy said, resting a hand on Matt's shoulder. "But I'm here for you, buddy. We're in this together now and you can count on me."

 

* * *

 

 

It took some time, but slowly Foggy did get used to knowing Matt's secret. If anything, it brought them closer together and bonded them. It certainly made living together easier. Foggy had a new appreciation for Matt's pain tolerance when he realized the full extent of Matt's constant accommodating and suffering in silence. He switched to a scent-free laundry detergent, began cleaning their room with vinegar or lemon instead of harsh chemicals. He got used to writing his essays to classical music or jazz instead of jamming his headphones on to play heavy metal. He made sure to be extra careful about expired foods in their dorm refrigerator. When he returned home for the holidays that Christmas, Matt in tow, his mother commented to Matt that she'd never seen her son clean up after himself so well or behave so well. He'd exaggerated rolling his eyes and narrated the action for Matt's sake, but he knew that she was right. Matt had never asked him to do it, but he felt obligated to do what he could for his friend, his rescuer.  
  
And as a result, Matt accommodated Foggy too. He brought him with him to the gym and, at Foggy's insistence, began teaching him how to box and fight. The first time Foggy saw Matt move he was blown away by the grace and agility the man had, and a little sad that he had missed out on getting to actually see him kick ass the night he was attacked. Eventually, Foggy felt like maybe he could kick ass on his own thanks to Matt's help. And he was in better shape than he'd ever been on top of it.  
  
They would sit up at night in their room and Matt would narrate his favorite albums to Foggy, telling him all about the notes he wasn't hearing. Some nights, they'd swap and Matt would try and hear what Foggy appreciated about Tool or System of a Down, even if he never quite liked it all that much. And they would cook together, with Matt taste-testing Foggy's food and critiquing it for him to help him improve his skills.  
  
And when things got bad, when Matt couldn't sleep at night because he could hear things going on across the campus, or when he woke up from a nightmare of blood and viscera under his fingertips in a cold alley, he told Foggy about it. He told Foggy everything.  


* * *

  
  
"So I just bumped into Morales," Foggy said as he moved into their tiny closet of an office at Landman and Zack and attempted to shut the door behind him. "Guess what he heard? They're gonna offer us the job. No more interning in a broom closet. We could each have our own office with a view of something."  
  
"Foggy..." Matt said.  
  
"I know," Foggy told him. "We must dissent from the indifference. Dissent from the apathy. I knew you were going to have Marshall on your mind today. I could tell by the look on your face in that meeting."  
  
"I need a better poker face," Matt said.  
  
"Nobody else noticed but me. I can read you like a book, buddy. What's bothering you?" Foggy asked.  
  
"What happened in there today wasn't right," Matt said. "Do you really want to be a part of that? Protecting corporations from people that need help?"  
  
Foggy just sighed. "Is this really about today? Or are you still thinking about the sirens? Still thinking about that little girl?"  
  
"I could have done more," Matt asked. "Could be doing more."  
  
"Matt," Foggy said, gathering up boxes as he spoke, "That little girl's life is awful and if I had to hear that happen, night after night... Well, I don't know what I'd do. But you did everything you could have done. You can't take on the suffering of everybody you hear. There are billions of people in the world. You can't help everyone. But you are right that maybe we could be doing more." He handed Matt a box.   
  
"What's this for?" Matt asked.  
  
"Well," said Foggy, "I'm gonna steal as many bagels as I can fit in this box. With you as my partner, there's no telling when I'll be able to afford a real meal again."  
  
"We will get by," Matt promised him.  
  
Foggy chuckled. "Come on, Mother Theresa. Let's go save the world. From my place, by the way. I'm not letting you stay in that apartment and listen to that every night. Maybe on my couch you can get some sleep."  


* * *

  
  
"You did it, didn't you?" Foggy asked him, his voice a whisper so that nobody else in the bar could hear.   
  
"Foggy..." Matt said, wanting to explain.  
  
"No, Matt," Foggy said. "No explanations. No speeches. No quoting Marshall at me and appealing to my sense of empathy. You look like hell. And you beat a man nearly to death last night. It was all over the news. I get that you feel frustrated, helpless and that you needed to do something, but that? We're about to start a law firm together and you suddenly decide that it's acceptable for you to take the law into your own hands?"  
  
"I'm sorry," Matt said. "I had to, Foggy. I couldn't keep hearing that little girl cry. You have no idea what it's like.  
  
"Maybe not. But I try. I always try. I am on your side, Matt, I really am, but you can't do this. Not now. Not when we're so close to really making a difference. The right way." Foggy thrust something into his hand.  
  
"What is this? A napkin?" Matt asked.  
  
"No, Matt. It's a drawing of a sign. Nelson and Murdock: Attorneys at Law. It was supposed to be our dream. But now I don't know." He put money down on the bar for Josie and stormed out, leaving Matt holding the crumpled up napkin in his hands, alone.  


* * *

  
  
They didn't talk for two days. Two long, stressful days. It was the longest they had gone without talking since that horrible day at the hospital years earlier.  
  
It wasn't that they didn't want to talk. Matt would pick up his phone and go to call Foggy, then decide against it. He didn't know what he wanted to do. The devil inside of him seemed closer to the surface than ever before and he was terrified that it would scare his friend away, even after everything they had been through together. Foggy knew him better than anyone. If he rejected him now, it would be crushing.   
  
He went back to the church for the first time in years, begging for forgiveness from God but really wanting it from his friend. He sat in front of his computer with an online shopping cart open containing a set of dark clothing and protective gloves for what felt like hours before clicking the button to purchase them.  
  
He knew that he didn't want to stop what he was doing. It felt too satisfying. It brought him too much peace.  
  
Foggy was also having regrets. Had he pushed Matt to hard? What if Matt needed to do this? What would it mean for their law firm, for their friendship if he did?  
  
Finally, he decided what he knew he needed to do and went to find Matt at the one place he knew he'd be. Fogwell's Gym.  
  
"Hey," he said.  
  
"Hey," Matt said, not stopping his assault on the punching bag.  
  
"So," Foggy said after a moment of awkward silence had passed, "I called the real estate agent. She's got a couple of places for us to look at."  
  
"Yeah," Matt asked, finally pausing to turn to Foggy.  
  
"Yeah," Foggy said.  
  
"You, uh... You really want to do this?" Matt asked. "Even if..." he trailed off, unsure how to finish.  
  
"Are you going to stop?" Foggy asked.  
  
"No," Matt told him.  
  
Foggy sighed. "I didn't think so. I don't know what to do here, man. I'm pissing my pants. There is actual urine in my trousers." He laughed softly. "There are so many ways that this could go so horribly wrong. We're talking about criminal charges, disbarment, all kinds of trouble. You know that, right?"  
  
"I've thought about it, yeah," Matt said.  
  
"The truth is that even knowing all that, I just keep thinking back to that night," Foggy said. "The night you saved my life. I was so terrified. If you hadn't have been there, who knows what could have happened. And that little girl must have felt so alone. I'm glad you stepped in and did something at the end of the day. Nobody deserves that."  
  
"No," Matt said. "They don't."  
  
"We could do a lot of good, you and I. But you could do a lot of good on your own too, exorcising your demons."  
  
"I don't have..." Matt said, but Foggy interrupted him.  
  
"C'mon, Matt. I know you. And I trust you. If you still think this is what we should be doing, then I'm with you. For better or worse."  
  
"Sounds like we're getting married," Matt said.  
  
"This is way more important than a civil union! Come on, we're gonna be business partners! And co-conspirators in whatever it is you decide to do on the streets at night when I'm waiting up, worried about you. We're gonna share everything with each other. Our dreams, bills, crushing debt, hopefully not a prison cell at any point."  
  
"Foggy, I can't let you..." Matt said, clearly intending to tell Foggy that he didn't want him to be a part of anything he decided to do, but again he was cut off.  
  
"There's no one I'd rather be doing this with, buddy," Foggy said. "Seriously."  
  
He wasn't taking no for an answer.  
  
"Me too, pal," Matt finally said.  
  
"Now bring it in here, and I don't even care that you're all sweaty. We need to hug this out," Foggy said. He grabbed Matt and pulled him into a warm hug that eventually Matt leaned into.  
  
"Nelson and Murdock: Attorneys at Law," he whispered in Matt's ear.  
  
"Nelson and Murdock," Matt said back.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, my Tumblr is [here](http://enthusiasmgirl.tumblr.com).
> 
> And today my fanfiction podcast The OTPodcast launched! Woot! If you want to listen to it (and if you're here, you're it's target audience), you can find the first episode and other fanfic-related content [here](http://otpodcast.tumblr.com).


End file.
